The problem lies in semantics. GP. General practitioner. Could one be more vague than that? There’s an argument that since, on the whole, we provide general medical services (in medical centres) we should be called general medical practitioners. After all, my undergraduate training was in medicine and surgery, not simply everything in general. Around the […]
The BMJ Today: What do walnut whip, the Carpenters, and Candy Crush have in common?
Walnut whip, the Carpenters, and Candy Crush are just some of the guilty pleasures to which doctors have admitted when filling in our questionnaire for BMJ Confidential. This week it is the turn of Louis Appleby, who was national director for mental health from 2000 to 2010, and for offender health from 2010 to 2014. […]
Grazia Caleo: Ebola—a blind outbreak
In José Saramago’s book Blindness, he describes an epidemic of an unknown infection that causes people to lose their sight. A single person remains uninfected to bear witness to the anger, chaos, violence, and death generated by the spread of disease. In the novel, humanity’s descent into blindness represents the loss of reason and shows how […]
William Cayley: My Chief Complaint
My chief complaint . . . is with the chief complaint. One of the hallowed concepts in medical history taking and documentation is the “chief complaint.” Supposedly a way to set the agenda for a medical visit, in current practice it often gets both distorted and treated as a boundary setter. Ideally, in medicine, we […]
The BMJ Today: The unanswered questions on Scotland’s day of reckoning
Today, the people of Scotland will cast their landmark vote on whether to break away from the UK and become an independent nation. By this time tomorrow, they will have unequivocally answered the single burning question: “Yes” or “No.” But in medical circles, a raft of deeper questions about the potential impact on healthcare will remain […]
David Payne: A London lullaby factory, and other open buildings
A hospital “lullaby factory” and a children’s hospice extension in the style of a garden shed are among 15 health related buildings to welcome visitors as part of Open House London this weekend. Haven House Children’s Hospice has leased The White House, an Edwardian Arts and Crafts building, since 2002. Earlier this year the charity, based […]
David Oliver: Tails of the unexpected—could the NHS learn from vets?
As I sit at my keyboard, I am looking at my calm and contented 3 year old calico cat, Tilly. Apart from the shaved area on her flank, you wouldn’t know anything had ever been different. Yet last week, she came close to dying from acute kidney injury. I had come home after a long day […]
Helen Morant: Characters welcome
You’d expect an academic researching the influence of TV and games on children’s development to be presenting some data about violent games as causative factors in school shootings. But Sandra Calvert, a professor of psychology and director of the Children’s Digital Media Center, is talking about the role of characters—especially online characters in interactive educational games—in children’s […]
The BMJ Today: Profanities and protests in public health
Public health has become heated, with the fiery debate over e-cigarettes pushing one public health director over boiling point, and public health leaders across Europe becoming incensed by changes at the European Commission. As Gareth Iacobucci reports, John Ashton, the president of the UK Faculty of Public Health, described a supporter of e-cigarettes on Twitter […]
Duncan Jarvies: Preventing Overdiagnosis 2014—I am not legion
I’m against overdiagnosis, overcooked food, and over long films, said David Haslam, chair of the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. All of us probably agree—especially when it comes to overcooked food—which is part of the problem. At the Preventing Overdiagnosis conference in Oxford, the big topics are diabetes, hypertension, and statins. Lifestyle diseases that we […]